Daily Digest

Owner Files Loan on Sanderlin Office Condo

The owner of a 12,286-square-foot office condominium at 5170 Sanderlin Ave. has filed a $700,000 loan on the property.

Marger Partnership, whose partners are Morris J. Kriger and William G. Martin, filed the deed of trust March 20 through Commercial Bank and Trust Co.

On the same day as the financing, Marger Partnership received the property in a quitclaim deed from Wingfinance Realty, whose partners also are Kriger and Martin.

Built in 1985, the Class C office condo sits on 0.8 acres along the north side of Sanderlin Avenue between White Station and Mendenhall roads.

The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2012 appraisal was $1.1 million.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

U of M Sub Shop Finds New Home

Super Submarine Sandwich Shop is moving along with its plans to relocate from its longstanding location on the Highland Avenue strip near the University of Memphis.

A $141,000 building permit has been applied with the city-county Office of Construction Code Enforcement for the interior and exterior remodel of the old Captain D’s restaurant space at 3316 Summer Ave.

Peili Chen and Junwei Hun, owners of Super Submarine Sandwich Shop (also known as Chinese Sub Shop), bought the Summer Avenue space in January for $210,000. Built in 1977, the 2,872-square-foot freestanding space includes a drive-thru and sits on 0.7 acres near North Holmes Street.

Hun said Super Submarine Sandwich Shop has about two more months left at its 671 S. Highland St. location. The eatery has been a community staple for more than 35 years.

The property owner of the 9,628-square-foot strip center at 612 S. Highland St. that the sub shop and also novelty shop Whatever currently operate out of is under contract to sell it to a new owner that will purportedly raze it for a new development. Palmer Brothers Inc. manages the Highland property for the estate of Marion J. Madison.

Whatever, which has been housed at 610 S. Highland St. for more than 40 years, plans to move across the street into the space that formerly housed Double Deuce, next to Juicy Jim’s, by summer.

– Sarah Baker

Red Deluxe Adds Two New Clients

Memphis-based ad agency Red Deluxe is starting off the year with two new clients on board.

The agency is now working with New Hampshire-based College for America and the Washington-based ALS Association.

Red Deluxe is developing and executing a national public relations and communications plan for College for America, which is a national workforce college attainment initiative funded by a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation/EDUCAUSE grant.

Red Deluxe also is working with the ALS Association, which is a leader in research and advocacy for patients facing what’s commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, on a variety of communication strategies.

– Andy Meek

Botanic Garden Adds Digital Entrance Signs

The Memphis Botanic Garden has three new digital signs to mark the entrance road as well as the entrance to the garden itself.

The two larger digital signs, at Park Avenue and Cherry Road and at Southern Avenue and Cherry Road, can also include information about upcoming events and change the listings.

The smaller sign at the garden itself is more to direct visitors to specific parts of the garden.

The signs are already up and expected to be working properly in the next month.

– Bill Dries

Bill Could Change Open Meetings Law

A Republican lawmaker who last year backed off a bill that would have allowed local officials to hold more closed-door meetings has renewed the effort, saying he’s asked county commissioners to bring him a proposal that has a chance of passing a key subcommittee.

Rep. Glen Casada of Franklin has a bill scheduled before the House State Government Subcommittee on Tuesday that could be amended to address local government officials’ call for a bill to allow them to meet privately as long as a quorum isn’t present.

Williamson County Commissioner Bob Barnwell, who spearheaded a similar attempt last year, has written to local government colleagues around the state, urging them to encourage state lawmakers to pass such a measure.

Casada told The Associated Press on Thursday that he advised commissioners a bill in that form won’t pass the subcommittee. He didn’t specify what changes should be made, but said he’s “still negotiating.”

Current law forbids two or more members of a local legislative body from meeting privately to deliberate on public business. It does not ban officials from speaking to each other during chance encounters or from having other conversations.

But Barnwell notes in the letter that the law does not apply to the General Assembly.

“The goal of this legislation is to make the Open Meetings Laws as consistent as possible for all elected officials, whether state and local,” he said.

Kent Flanagan, director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, has called the effort “misguided.”

“It guts the essence of what Sunshine Law is all about, which is doing the public’s business in public,” he said.

TCOG is a nonprofit alliance of citizen, professional and media groups, including The Associated Press. The group is committed to promoting government transparency.

Last year, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and the speakers of the House and Senate expressed reservations about the effort to change the law, and the bill was withdrawn early in the session.

– The Associated Press

Tennessee AG to Defend State Law in Meningitis Lawsuit

The Tennessee attorney general is defending a state law that caps damages in civil cases in a lawsuit filed by the husband of a Brentwood woman who died after getting fungal meningitis from tainted steroid injections.

The lawsuit was filed by Wayne Reed over the death of his wife, Diana, against the owners and operators of Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center, which administered the shots produced by the Massachusetts-based New England Compounding Center.

Diana Reed died on Oct. 3 and was the primary caregiver for her husband, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease and uses a wheelchair. The lawsuit accuses those who ran the outpatient clinic of being negligent and reckless for using compounded drugs from NECC.

More than 700 people have gotten sick from the injections and 50 have died across the country stemming from the outbreak that was first discovered in Tennessee last fall.

Wayne Reed’s complaint asks for $12.5 million in compensatory damages, well above the maximum amount that plaintiffs can receive under a Tennessee law that went into effect in 2011 that caps damages from personal injury cases.

Reed’s attorneys claim the law that caps damages at $750,000 for non-economic damages and $500,000 for punitive damages is unconstitutional. The lawsuit says that it deprives him of his protected right to trial by jury and usurps the powers of the judicial branch.

Attorney General Robert Cooper filed a motion to intervene in the case to defend the state law and a hearing on the state’s request is scheduled for Friday morning in Davidson County Circuit Court.

– The Associated Press

Price of Oil Drifts Upward

The price of oil drifted higher Friday, as traders waited to see what happens next in the Cyprus financial crisis.

By early afternoon Friday in New York, benchmark oil for May delivery was up 47 cents to $92.92 a barrel. Still, oil appeared headed for its first weekly loss in March.

The European Central Bank has threatened to end emergency support of Cyprus’s banks next week unless leaders there can secure more funding.

In the U.S., the average price for a gallon of gas held steady at $3.69 a gallon. That’s 8 cents cheaper than a month ago and 19 cents below the price a year ago.